Why I worship Ted Leo: reason #23

This guy writes songs about stuff that other punks wouldn't touch with a 10 foot stick. Item A is the glorious 'Me and Mia', a fiercly infectious slice of power pop that sounds ready for the whole family to enjoy. Except that it's about Ted's compassion for victims of eating disorders. Yet he brings the same utterly sincere fervor to his performance as he does in his angriest agitprop rants. Or how about 'Hearts of Oak', about how difficult it is for women to break through in the rock music scene? 'St. John the Divine', about the pitfalls of anti-depression medication? Ted Leo's lyrics are fearlessly emotional. He's never been afraid of sacrificing punk credibility to show a more sensitive side, which paradoxically endows his more political pieces with even greater power. Perhaps my favorite 'emo' Ted Leo moment is 'Sons of Cain', the first song on his last album, Living With The Living. I got so swept up in the roaring guitars, ferocious vocals, and break-neck rhythm of the song that it wasn't until months after first hearing the song that I realized it's about Ted mourning the loss of a partner, with the most tenderly melancholy lyrics imaginable. Yet the performance remains punk to the core, no power ballads for Leo. And the result is incredibly moving.

And I know I'm not to sing of fights I've missed

But alone I've got to sing just to exist!

How the world began

I don't think I've devoted enough blog-space to Modest Mouse, easily one of my favorite bands of all time. Maybe it's because they haven't done anything since 'Float On' that's been really worth talking about. That aside, going into their back catalogue is infinitely rewarding: their early material is so rich with emotions and ideas, and their sound is so original and distinctive. My most recent fix has been the opening track off The Moon and Antarctica, entitled '3rd Planet.' Isaac Brock is one of pop music great song writers, but he outdoes himself here by shunning his traditionally graphic philosophical musings for something, dare I say, poetic? My favorite lyric in the song (and possibly my favorite Brock lyric of all time, which is saying a hell of a lot) occurs in the first verse, and goes as follows:

The third planet is certain they're being watched

By an eye in the sky that can't be stopped

When you get to the promised land

You're gonna shake that eyes hand

Your heart felt good

It was dripping pitch and made of wood

And your hands, and knees

Felt cold and wet on the grass to me

While outside naked, shivering looking blue

From the cold sunlight that's reflected off the moon

And baby cum angels fly around you

Reminding me we used to be three and not just two

And that's how the world began

And that's how the world will end

In between the fourth and fifth lines above a lazy acoustic strum is interrupted by a cymbal crash and five successive beats led by ringing electric guitar notes that repeat, then change chord. It's a remarkable moment, and Brock's accompanying lyrics are beautifully evocative of something: a naked couple lying on the ground outside on a cold night staring at the moon? Contemplating love, sex, creation, and existence perhaps? It's grand, but Brock is always swinging for the fences when it comes to making sense of the ball of confusion that is earth, or even more grandly, the universe. Enormous and minute problems are all of equal magnitude to Brock, which might be why is able to imbue simple expression with intense emotional weight. Take the track 'Broke', another of my recent kicks off of the fantastic Building Nothing Out of Something compilation, in which Brock plays with the titular word to find deeper meanings in everyday events:

Broken glasses but it broke the ice

You said that I was an asshole and I'd pay the price

Broken hearts want broken necks

I've done some things that I sort of regret but I can't

Backed by the trailer trash emo sound of early Mouse, and sung in Brock's cracked lisp, these words take on a compelling resonance. They're the sort of simple but endlessly sad and profound ideas one might expect from a white trash high school dropout. That Brock does so in such an authentic, unconcious matter adds a lot; Modest Mouse songs work because the guys in the band are genuine fuck-ups. If they weren't, there's know way there music would sound so real. I'll close this fawning post with some more of my favorite Brock lyrics, from another Building Nothing cut, this one entitled 'Medication'. As you read these lyrics, imagine a glorious Hammond B3 organ accompaniment, and Brock's lonely caterwaul:

And I don't know

Well I could go away and you could wish that I had stayed

Or just stayed gone

And I don't know, at all

So out of the context

Then into what you meant

You don't know your reason

You don't know who you are, but you know who you want to be

The song that's shaking me

Can I take a minute to talk about 'Letter From An Occupant' by the New Pornographers, and how it's one of the best pop songs ever made? The loud crunching guitar lines and hammering drums that open the song in rapid fire, then cut back when Neko Case's godly voice enters? The British Invasion riffs that drive the song forward? The nonsensical yet relentlessly invigorating lyrics ("I cried 5 rivers on the way here/ Which one will skate away on?")? The divine chorus with Neko's stunning lead vocal, followed by wordless vocals and the thundering question "Where have all sensations gone!?" Who is the star of the show? Neko's singing? A. C. Newman's remarkable song craft? The way the whole band pulls together to turn simple power pop into an bull-dozing, exhausting, and ultimately uplifting anthem with seemingly every bell and whistle in the book? The answer: every individual piece of this song, from start to finish, is perfection. It could not have been pulled off any better. Kudos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBAUQaj6EJo

Bound by these choices

Listened to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for the first time in a very long time today, and while every song on the album is good (literally), my surprise favorite is probably the last track, 'Reservations.' Many of Jeff Tweedy's songs give off an air cocky self-assurance that gets under my skin sometimes, but when he deigns to show us his vulnerabilities, it can be pretty disarming. Now, I'm not one for rock ballads, in fact I dislike almost all of them, but when I hear a good one, I fall for it hard. And 'Reservations' is very good. "How can I convince you that it's me I don't like?" is the opening line, and somehow Tweedy spends the rest of the song selling us a bunch of uber-emo lyrics without making us cringe. My favorite line is the chorus: "Oh I've got reservations/ About so many things/ But not about you." Airing personal insecurities can be a songwriter's deathtrap, but when it's pulled off right, it can earn a quick route to the listener's heart. Capping off such an ambitious album with a moment of real sincerity certainly does it for me.

Speaking of great rock ballads, my song of the week is 'Lord I'm Discouraged' by the Hold Steady. Probably my favorite Hold Steady song, in spite of the Manfred Mann-esque guitar theatrics midway through. I go back and forth on Craig Finn's lyrics, but this song is certainly his finest moment as a song-writer, at least of what I've heard. It would be a waste of time for me to attempt to do them justice by discussing them here, so just go out and listen to the song. I will say, however, that the closing line always gives me chills, so I've got to quote it here, just for good measure: "I know it's unlikely she'll ever be mine/ So mostly I just pray she don't die."

He drops his new shit/ It sounds like the best of

I've been going through the Pitchfork top 200 albums of the decade list recently, trying to listen to all of the albums that I own and are uploaded to my library. Just got done with #18, Kanye's Late Registration, which I hadn't listened to in eons. Dammm, so good, it totally vindicated it's status as Nick Holowka's favorite Kanye West album. No question it's choppy: starts well with all of the radio crossover stuff, Touch the Sky, Gold Digger, Drive Slow, etc., hits a really bad middle stretch with Roses and Bring Me Down, then closes immaculately. In particular, I'm talking about 'We Major' and 'Gone', the two best songs in Kanye's catalogue. Both are long and ridiculously over produced, and both feature show stopping guest spots, Nas on the former ("I heard the beat and I ain't know what to write/ First line, should it be about the hos or the ice?/Fo-fo's or black christ, both flows would be nice"), and Killa Cam on the latter ("You ever dealt with a dealer?/ Well here's the deal ma, we goin' to the dealer"). They also both boast fantastically triumphant vocal outros by Kanye that ride over ever-changing beats that make up very unconventionally structured rap songs. This sense of pop-ready adventure hasn't been touched since in rap music, which is what makes Late Registration a masterpiece in spite of all its flaws. As my brother has frequently pointed out, the album contains some of Kanye's worst verses, but I could just as easily argue it contains many of his best (see Gold Digger, Drive Slow, both versions of Diamonds). Plus, when you have as many good guest appearances as this album, the point becomes somewhat moot. But its the sense of studio experimentation which really separates this album from the pack. Nothing in pop music before or since sounds like it, and nothing in mainstream rap apart from the Outkast camp has ever been as adventurous. Being a pessimist when it comes to hip-hop, I'm inclined to think that it's going to stay that way.

mothafuckin' old school video of the day

Tonight's Da Night by Redman (c.1993)

Years ago I saw one of those BET Top 25 video countdowns being hosted by Redman and Method Man. Slotted in at #10 was the video for 'King of Rock' by Run-DMC, for which Redman made the ludacris comment, "This is actually my favorite video of all time. Black and white film, leather jackets, it don't get no more gully than that!" Later, when 'Throw Ya Gunz' by Onyx was declared #1, Method Man prefaced the selection by fondly reminiscing, "This came out back in the day when you could walk into da club in a hoodie and your big, dirty-ass boots on and not get shit." 

The comments, while providing a good laugh at the time, were actually quite insightful into the duo's overall creative process, in particular Redman's. In the video to 'Tonight's Da Night,' perhaps the quintessential Redman track, the aforementioned aesthetics dominate: filmed in black and white, the video pretty much consists of Red rolling around the Trenton, NJ hood in the dead of winter, and chilling on the project steps with his crew. Almost a proto-version of 'Ha,' before that particular genre of hip-hop music video rose to prominence. Nothing really happens in the video, but it's still enthralling, mainly because it lends legitimacy to Redman's ethos of keeping it real as summarized in the line "I never claim to be a big rap star because no matter who you are, you still catch a bullet scar." This mission statement was later confirmed in the classic Redman 'Cribs' episode in which he showed off his very real 2 story woodframe. The highlight of the video has to be when Red says the line "I'm not an addict, more like puff the magic/ Then pass it when I'm through cuz my crew gots to have it!" at which point there's a cut to a shot of red's whole crew standing out on the porch in full winter coats shouting the last 4 words of the line. The last verse, in which Red is inexplicably rapping with a wad of tissue stuck up one of his nostrels, is also classic. 

The truest lyrics in the whole song have to be the final lines of the last full verse, in which Redman declares "Niggas fucked up by letting me make an album/ (how come rudeboy?) To get on the mic and let my fuckin' style run!"

Life's Too Good?

Hmmm, this post almost feels like an excuse to put up the above picture, undoubtably one of my favorite album covers of all time. Because, really there isn't much substance to what I have to say today. I just happened to listen to Debut for the first time, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Historically, my appreciation for Bjork has had less to do with how much I enjoy listening to her music and more about her alluring otherworldly qualities.

My brother and I have debated the relative merit of Post vs Homogenic in the past, with me taking the side of the former. They are tremendously difficult to compare, and I may have to cede the argument to Tom because the first 6 songs on Homogenic are nearly perfect. One of those songs, '5 Years' is not only my favorite Bjork song, but one of my favorite songs of all time. But I have trouble relating to Homogenic, because the depth of emotional pain that it explores is beyond my current comprehension. In other words, I can't fully relate to the album, and I think I'll have to wait until the day my heart gets ground to a bloody pulp before I'll feel its full effect. Post is much more accessible in that regard, and its creative dance tracks ('Enjoy', 'I Miss You') along with the smattering of emotionally resonant ones ('Hyperballad,' 'Headphones') goes down more easily for me.

Although Debut is as different from these two albums as the are from one another, it makes sense in the context of their respective moods. The overall vibe of the songs is very positive and exciting. A young fresh-faced Bjork sounds like she's ready to explore the world and all of the adventures it has to offer (kind of ironic, considering she had been a mother for several years by the time this album came out). So many tracks jumped out at me, in particular 'Human Behavior,' 'Venus As A Boy,' 'There's More To Life Than This,' 'Big Time Sensuality,' 'Aeroplane,' and 'The Anchor Song.' I also like 'Violently Happy' for the counterbalance it provides. Only one listen, but I feel like I may have a new favorite Bjork album to argue about with my brother.